For the past couple months I have been experiencing really troubling signs in regards to my hormones. At first with my consistant training i could gor for 6-7 weeks of training before hitting my upper limit and needing a week off. It has since gotten to the point where i am taking 8 days of rest every 3-4 weeks. And in that time span i am just destroyed.

I didn't understand how i could go from fine to fucked in just a few months but apparently it can happen like a light switch.

My sleep was becoming more and more disrupted until finally i wasn't sleeping more than a few hrs a night. I finally took two solid weeks of rest and nothing resolved itself so i quit weightliftng and went to a doctor. My blood work showed i have low testostrrone free and total, very high cortisol and very high IGF-1.

After getting my lab results sent to an endocrinologis i recieved a call back and based on my medical history and those results they think i may have a tumor on my pituitary gland. Albeit, and luckily most likely benign.

So i have an appointment at UCSD on Dec. 16 and an MRI to diagnose my issue. Even if not a tumor they are certain there is one.

I am so depressed. My Crohn's has been flaring so hard because of all this i can barely take care of my mother. I am going into debt insanely fast with the car rentals , hotels and life shit.

I don't have any friends and no one to lean on. I have to appear strong for mom because she struggles herself. I feel so damn segretaed and isolated. All my hard work is being washed away.

But i am trying to stay positive and looking for the light at the end. But it's really hard when everything you've done crumples around you and you have no one to lean on at all.

I guess i am thankful i am still kicking and mom is healthy. And for you guys. You're all the support i have.

An update. So basically what ended up happening is my Crohn's attacked my endocrine system. Coupled with an allergy/sensitivity to all grains that finally became acute and my exercise schedule (Which is heavily dependent on my endocrine system being able to function to repair me after workouts) I managed to inadvertently cause a crap ton of inflammation which sent my Crohn's into a shit storm which by some manner managed to fry my endocrine system, tank my testosterone and raised my cortisol. I became suspicious when I noticed my liver enzymes were elevated which can be caused by inflammation and a disrupted endocrine system. Also my thyroid hormone was lowered as is evident by my new rested blood work which shows a marked increase. Another sign my efforts working out were not healing was my high creatine kinesis level. My low free testosterone was another sign my endocrine system was on the fritz too but was more of a byproduct of this but also swung back around to bite me in the ass. We just didn't know why everything was so screwed up, the fatigue sent us chasing our tails. It was one giant feedback loop with the primary cause being Crohn's . I had to really play detective and look at all my blood work and do a lot of research and harassing my awesome 1/2 Western 1/2 natural path doctor.

Resting for a few weeks or so and then easing back into training starting with body weight only then with a drastically changed ha grain free high fat diet and truncated high intensity low volume routine. Looking at swapping my jogs with Sprints and shaving my routines down to 30-45 min 3x a week focusing primarily on my bread and butter compounds. Keep with reverse pyramid in but also going to try a tighter cluster that Martin of lean gains likes at 4/5/6.

I am also taking Mike Mahler aggressive strength testosterone booster but since I am fighting up hill I cannot tell if it is working yet. I will know when I get my blood re tested in mid January. He is a great, well educated and very helpful dude.

Well see how my levels look in February. For starting reference my free test is 40. 6 my bioavailable is 90.6 and my total is 357.

I have lost a lot of muscle but I am determined not to go down without a fight. I am a Goddamn viking and I refuse to lay down and take it. I have redoubled my efforts and become a very strict grain free Vegan in the last couple weeks too.

D-aspartic acid is also great test booster my friend and one of the few proven scientifically to work. its pretty cheap too as you can just buy the powder instead of a fancy brand. hope you managed to have a good christmas regardless.

mike

"iam the strongest one! iam the viking!" - jon pall sigmarsson“may all of your dreams and ambitions happen, but most important, may all of your enemies die"www.infowars.com

mrbear666 wrote:D-aspartic acid is also great test booster my friend and one of the few proven scientifically to work. its pretty cheap too as you can just buy the powder instead of a fancy brand. hope you managed to have a good christmas regardless.

mike

the

My blood work shows that DAA does absolutely nothing for me. Not sure if Mikes supplement is working. I am just starting to gain ground.

Six nights of sleep and my body is starting to get the upper hand, the first five sucked but last night was the turning point. I've been slamming way more calories than I need resting to give my body the energy to work on my endocrine system and hormones. A lot of healthy dietary fat, the perfect fuel for hormones. I am eating nearly 45% of my calories from whole fat coconut milk/oil, avocados, pistachios, walnuts, macadamia, almonds, cashews, tahini , sunflower seed butter, flaxseed, and olive oil. And it's really starting to make a sizeable dent as I woke up feeling amazing.

Another few weeks and I should be able to do some wind sprints and basic calisthenics to prime my body to get back to lifting.

So something is definitely changing in my body. Despite being off weightlifting I am actually getting leaner and my muscles are getting fuller, all despite the fact I am over eating? I suspect my body is carb intolerant and/or insulin resistant so with me ditching grains and starches the insulin blunting free test is starting to rebound. Another thing I think is happening with my new increased fat intake is that my cholesterol is going up making more available to my healing endocrine system to make hormones with which could be making me leaner. I also suspect this because of my sore knees, my body may be rebalancing estrogen and testosterone. I have been getting stomach cramps but I suspect this is from my guts healing from the inflammation and rebalancing to my new macros and lack of wheat. The fatigue is setting in a lot later too, 3 or 4 vs noon.

All of this leads me to believe my body is on the mend and making changes for the better. I will just have to wait and see and have all my panels redone in mid January. There is a lot going on with all the dietary and lifestyle changes I have made and it's a lot to keep track of.

Still on the mend. I just order two more 45lb plates for my home gym. Up to 371lbs in bars/iron now. I also ordered some pro wrist wraps along with some misc. supplements. Got get my belt from strength shop and some chains but I still have a few weeks left to rest.

Feeling pretty darn good with the dietary fat intake. I hit 3000 Kcal today with 50% being fat. Sunday treat was a Stevia soda and 80% dark chocolate dipped in sunflower butter.

Well I am resting very nicely. In the past few days have been sleeping about 10hrs a night. The horrific bags under my eyes are gone. I still have really low Libido but the dreadful fatigue is gone. Not sure if Mike Mahler's supplement is working but I will have to have my hormones tested to find out for sure. I am still slamming a lot of dietary fat to get my cholesterol up. But I feel like I am at the tippy point where I am losing the testosterone boosting effects of exercise so I may run some sprints next week and/or body weight training the following week.

Apparently my cholesterol could take months to go up as well as my hormones so I need to be careful when I get back to training not to destroy myself.

Well I just got my bloodwork from the beginning of December. It was a perfect storm of an imperfect diet and me fucking around with my hormones through untested means (amino acids my body produces naturally ) Moral of the story is not to go manipulating any one hormone because our body will just down regulate to attempt to keep homeostasis. D aspartic acid jacked up my prolactin, lowering my testosterone by some means and spinning me off into a violent flare. The inflammation then lowered my testosterone even more.

Your body makes a set amount of d aspartic acid and forcing it up by artificial means is no good.

My liver enzymes are down as us my prolactin. My testosterone total, free and bio have all DOUBLED. Just by nixng DAA, resting, and fixing my vitamin D (last is questionable as it as have not yet gotten hugh enough to make a change.)

The key here is my diet could have been better and is now with the removal of all grains and chemically pressed oils to prevent inflammation as well as higher fat. And I should not have screwed with DAA.

Excited to get back to lifting and have my blood tested again to see if my grain free high fat diet has increased my natural levels any. Going to be looking to see if I maximized my cholesterol and if my triglycerides dropped with the removal of grains and to see if Mike mahler 's supplement helped any with estrogen, SHBG and testosterone.

Oh and just to clarify. This is only partially my fault. Fuck you Crohn's.